I liked that first layered poinsettia card so much I made another, this time with some pale green brusho to get the ‘white poinsettia’ look. I think I could go even lighter with my paint so there may be another poinsettia card to come. I started with watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid so I would have little white dots over the petals at the end.

I painted lime green brusho on the watercolour panel but it ended up separated into distinct areas of blue and yellow so I add a tiny bit of olive green brusho to get everything looking greener. When I die-cut the petals I tried to keep the smaller ones a little lighter and the larger ones darker.

Even though I was aiming for clean and simple when I lay the petals on a white card base, it was a little too stark. A layer of vellum softened the base and I splattered gold paint over it then added an embossed sentiment. Solving the vellum adhesive problem was easy under the die cuts and sentiment but the corners needed something too so I added just the tiniest amount from my tombow tape runner to hold them down to the card base.

Stay tuned because I think there are another couple of colour schemes yet to be tried with this pretty little die set!

After creating a pretty blue background through the magic of brusho yesterday, I decided to do the same with green and red for poinsettias. This set of four dies is called ‘layered poinsettia‘ and it was so easy to create pretty red and green flowers with some scattered brusho on watercolour paper. I had three scraps of hot pressed watercolour paper on my craft mat. I sprinkled mostly brilliant red brusho on two with a bit of leaf green either end, then I sprinkled more of the green and less of the red on my third strip. After I had spritzed water over them all I could see where more colour was needed so I sprinkled some more of the first two colours plus some rose red and spritzed again.

I left the scraps to dry then laid three flower dies on the strips and cut our 3×3 of the small, medium and large flowers making sure I got some green on the large and the medium ones. Once they were all cut I lay them back on my craft mat and splattered gold paint from my finetec mica pearl set over all the flowers.

I let them dry and assembled them by dotting glue on the backs. There is a teeny tiny die for the centres (which I have not lost so far!) which were cut from gold foil cardstock to tie in with my gold splatter. To assemble the card I glued the flowers on a strip of white cardstock, attached that to a strip of shimmery red cardstock then mounted it on a white card base. I added the little ‘sending joy’ sentiment from the PB holiday snippets set.

Don’t forget the Foiled Fox has a cool sale on all weekend; just click the link in my side bar or right here and use the discount code HOLIDAY2017 when you check out.

I have another brusho sky to share, this time a backdrop for this lovely new scenic stamp from Penny Black. I was playing with this stamp all morning as I worked on designs for my October class. We won’t be making this card but the stamp is in the line up. I used three colours of brusho powder on photo paper and the speckly, spotty effect of the brusho did all the work in creating a snowy sky. I used jet black stazon to stamp the image and sentiment. I have found it easier to ink the stamp and lay the photo paper down onto the stamp and press the back of the paper rather than the other way round. It is also possible with such a large stamp to peel one side of the panel up to check ink coverage, re-ink if necessary, then press down again without moving the other half of the panel. (thanks, Liliuska for that tip).

When I was making this card it was easy to make a few and of course each one is different; some have quite stormy skies, other more serene. I finished off the card with a thin black mat and a simple black sentiment.

This peaceful wilderness path is a scenic stamp from Darkroom Door. I’ve used it in three different ways to create some seasonal backgrounds. For the card above I created an alcohol ink background on yupo in the blues and greens of summer. I stamped the path stamp over the alcohol ink panel in stazon jet black ink. I hand wrote the little sentiment with a fine micron pen.

To create my golden fall scene I used distress oxide inks on glossy photo paper. I pressed the orange and yellow inks onto a craft mat, spritzed them and swiped my photo paper panel through the ink. Most of the colour soaked into the paper immediately but I set it aside to dry for a while and found there was a chalky residue that stayed on top. I wiped that off and was left with a background to which I stamped over with stazon jet black ink.

My chilly winter scene was created using brusho powders on a craft mat. I sprinkled some blue and purple on the mat, spritzed it then swiped some photo paper through the colour. The first print is usually quite intense so I think the one below must have been a second impression.

These cards are also on the Darkroom Door blog today so pop over there for all the complete supply list.

Brusho on photo paper can create really intricate patterns and soft blended backgrounds. I used the same few colours of brusho for the backgrounds on both cards but one was the first impression and the other a left over colour swipe. The first impression pattern was achieved by pressing the panel of photo paper down on top of the spritzed brusho. I didn’t move the panel from side to side just pressed it down into all the activated brusho. After lifting the panel and setting it aside I swiped another piece of photo paper through the remaining paint to pick up a soft blended look. There was not quite enough variation for my liking so I added a bit of blue brusho to the mat, spritzed and swiped again to get darker colour at the base of the panel.

I stamped the new ‘peaceful moment’ stamp over the brusho backgrounds in jet black stazon then added mats and sentiments to complete the cards. Make sure you check out the rest of the new products from the Penny Black releases along with the opportunities to win a spending spree.

I have a couple more cards that came out of my session with the Darkroom Door Wildflowers vol 2 stamps recently. I began by making blue watercolour backgrounds with brusho paints on hot pressed watercolour paper. Rather than apply the paint directly to the paper, I sprinkled it on a craft sheet, spritzed, then pressed the paper into the paint. I was able to pick up paint that was almost in crystal form as well as soft blended sections.

In the Wildflowers vol 2 set there is a large and a small version of the same flower so I used the small stamp on the panel above to create a base of flowers in chipped sapphire and stormy sky distress inks. I shook water droplets onto the panel to create pale watermarks here and there. Once the panel was dry I wiped an anti-static powder pillow across it and embossed the flowers and a sentiment from Bright Blossoms vol 1 in silver over the top of the blue. The silver catches the light depending on the angle but is tricky to capture with the camera.

On my second card I created the painted background the same way then stamped the flower three times in different distress stains. Once again I embossed over the top with silver, this time using a partial stamping of the French Script background stamp. I framed both panels in silver cardstock and added silver thread around the second panel before attaching to white card bases.